Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

No one should be doing indie rock at 43: Band of Horses’s Things Are Great reviewed

Ben Bridwell's plaintive vocals suggest a man who has just caught his testicles in the zipper of his jeans

issue 02 April 2022

Grade: B

That thing, ‘indie rock’, is so well played and produced these days, so pristine and flawless, that it has become almost the antithesis of what it was back at the end of the 1970s, when the term was invented. Then it referred to bands who released stuff on small independent labels because the big labels wouldn’t take them on. Shouty, angsty and angular, or just weird and beloved by the befringed dolorous yoof, in their anoraks or donkey jackets, the whole thing had a pleasing DIY feel to it, even if it sometimes grated. These days ‘indie’ just tends to mean anodyne power pop played by whining blokes who haven’t had a shag for ages.

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